涣 Dispersion
Upper trigram: Wind (wind) · Lower trigram: Water (water)
Dissolve what is stuck — dispersion before reunion.
Modern interpretation
What is stuck needs dissolving: misunderstandings, blockages, rigid factions. Disperse the tension with generosity and a shared larger purpose. Things must flow apart before they can come together rightly.
The Judgment · 卦辞
亨。王假有庙。利涉大川，利贞。
“Hwân intimates that (under its conditions) there will be progress and success. The king goes to his ancestral temple ; and it will be advantageous to cross the great stream. It will be advantageous to be firm and correct.” — James Legge, The Yî King (1882)
The six lines · 爻辞
Read from the bottom line upward. Each line pairs the received Chinese text with Legge's English translation.
用拯马壮，吉。
“The first line, divided, shows its subject engaged in rescuing (from the impending evil) and having (the assistance of) a strong horse. There will be good fortune.”
涣奔其机，悔亡。
“The second line, undivided, shows its subject, amid the dispersion, hurrying to his contrivance (for security). All occasion for repentance will disappear.”
涣其躬，无悔。
“The third line, divided, shows its subject discarding any regard to his own person. There will be no occasion for repentance.”
涣其群，元吉。涣有丘，匪夷所思。
“The fourth line, divided, shows its subject scattering the (different) parties (in the state) ; which leads to great good fortune. From the dispersion (he collects again good men standing out, a crowd) like a mound, which is what ordinary men would not have thought of.”
涣汗其大号，涣王居，无咎。
“The fifth line, undivided, shows its subject amidst the dispersion issuing his great announcements as the perspiration (flows from his body). He scatters abroad (also) the accumulations in the royal granaries. There will be no error.”
涣其血，去逖出，无咎。
“The topmost line, undivided, shows its subject disposing of (what may be called) its bloody wounds, and going and separating himself from its anxious fears. There will be no error.”
About changing lines
In a real I Ching reading, hexagrams are built by casting coins or yarrow stalks six times, bottom line first. Some lines come out “old” (unstable) — an old yin or old yang flips into its opposite, producing a second hexagram that shows where the situation is heading. The changing lines are the moving parts of your answer: read their individual line statements above, and they point to the direction of change.
Ask a question and cast the coins — free, with a plain-English interpretation grounded in the classical text.
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